May 2009

05/27/2009

[Editor's note: Hi! Lot's of folks end up on this blog because of this post. If you like the post (or even if you don't), take a look around. If you like what you see (or maybe if you don't), consider commenting, sharing, coming back or even subscribing. Okay, this is what I wrote that got people talking...]

In the near future, I believe that you'll be able to get an advanced degree in Business Design.

Some programs like the d.school (a formative experience for me) and Rotman are playing with this idea, but I don't think these programs really nail it yet.

The educational experience would be applied and pragmatic. Classes would be harder than fluid dynamics (ok maybe not, but close). As a student you would feel as inspired and challenged as you would in the most advanced studio art class. Theory alone wouldn't cut it. If you didn't do something practical by the end of the term in each class, you would fail. We would get things done.

I think I would have achieved a 2.6 average or so coming out of it, but I'd have learned a hell of a lot. Here's an initial list of classes: BDES_Curriculum (full list after the jump)

What would you add? What would the admission requirements and pre-requisites be?

BDES 101 | Creating Options (Do Nothing)3 creditsIn
this core class, we’ll tackle one of the key skills of the business
designer: generating, framing and valuing strategic options. We’ll
learn idea generation techniques, portfolio comparison strategies, game
theory and dig deep into weighing options.Practicum:
Act as a Business Unit president in a dynamic simulation. Create and
decide amongst many options as the context and competition changes all
around you.

Marketers use the Good Better Best ladder to communicate to a
customer which features are valuable and which are premium. The
features that appear in the ‘better’ that are absent in the lower model
must be ‘valuable’, after all I’m paying more. And the features I want
in the ‘best’ model, must be ‘premium’ because I’m paying over and
above to purchase them. I just bought a lawn mower this weekend under
this exact scenario. I rolled into a Home Depot and used the prices and
features of the products to figure out what I wanted and how much I’m
willing to pay. I used those features to educate myself around the
product (for better or worse). What I would have loved is a lawn mower
with a sign that says “if you have a small yard, buy this and you’re
all set.”

I think the only way you get out of selling products on a ladder is to think about how consumers consume
the products in a context. When you frame things around use and
experience, the fact that Starbucks has both a high-end and a low-end
offering makes sense; I don’t think consumers only drink coffee in one
context. The ironic thing is that the business press is so entrenched
in old dogma, they dont’ know exactly what to think about the move, it
breaks their model. I think it’s only confusing if you’re hell-bent on
a company selling widgets that only work one way.

Rarely do press releases get my heart fluttering, but this one did. By now it's been talked about quite broadly (PSFK and Core77.com both have blurbs), but Nokia is opening up their IP library. It felt important enough for me to write something down about it.

Nokia seems pretty darn serious about pursuing an open strategy. Their Ovi platform demonstrates this. And you can check out the Nokia Conversations site to watch it happen and see other indications of the approach.

Much of the conversation over the last few years around open innovation is starting to come to fruition: P&G's Connect & Develop, General Mills has a program, Best Buy's IdeaX, Starbucks MyIdea, and other networks like Innocentive.

(Update: My colleague Doug points me to Ideas Project which I knew about, but kind of didn't even think of as Nokia. How about that for open, if not a bit diffused, brand impact?)

As a "generic" strategy for large companies, open is becoming more prevalent and one to consider when designing an overall innovation strategy. To do it well, you have to commit to it. P&G, Mills, Best Buy and Starbucks have all been working on this for years

I wonder what it will take for companies not experimenting in this space to catch up and what acceleration strategies exist to help. I also wonder whether "open" is something that stands alone or is more of a cultural orientation? It takes a ton of systems design work, but that cultural piece is the trick.

05/16/2009

Many people must confront what it means to lead innovation without having done it. If you find yourself in that situation, follow the advice of Bob Sutton and spend as much time as you can understanding the nature of the work.

Beyond that, you can go a long way towards becoming a leader of innovation by keeping in mind seven words. Here are the first six:

ShareDirectionGivePermissionProvideSupport

The tendency is to focus on the second word of each of the first three pairings: Direction, Permission and Support. They feel concrete and leader-ly. To encourage the actions you want, the first words (Share, Give, Provide) are more important however.

With Direction, you should listen for opportunities, not assume you know them. Don't tell someone how to do the job, but instead help them discover the right question.

Permission is a gift, you have to be generous with it.

Support isn't just about books and methods and tools, you have to see yourself as a provider of energy, optimism and emotional support too.

Designing an innovation strategy and promoting a culture of innovation takes years, not months. It's a learning process that takes learning, investment, failure and risk. Without leadership commitment, employees might choose to "wait it out" or risks that don't pan out can put a halt to the whole show.

05/14/2009

Last October, we started talking with others at work about how much the Big Reset would reset things. We wondered how today's decision making should or would impact the design of tomorrow's product positioning.

Should we question, at least temporarily, the underlying margin and competitive dynamics implied by the concepts in Trading Up and the Paradox of Choice?

That question was percolating when Starbucks introduced its most recent advertising campaign (here's a piece from the WSJ).There are probably lots of things to say about Starbucks' creative strategy including whether or not it is designed for loyalty.

In addition to those question, this passage in this AdAge piece took me right back to our conversations from October:

Starbucks said yesterday it will lower prices on some beverages in certain markets while raising prices on larger, more "complex" drinks. The chain recently introduced breakfast "value pairings," and plans to debut a medium-size iced coffee for $2 on May 8.

So the chain is simultaneously saying Starbucks isn't as expensive as it's been painted and that it's worth paying more for. Mr. Davenport said the current economy necessitates both messages.

McDonald's and Dunkin have taken advantage of the current context and thrust themselves into the consideration set for consumers. In response, it seems like Starbucks is, via its communications, evacuating the middle.

So, what do you think? Is Good Better Best alive and well? Is it on temporary hiatus? Done for the time being? Does it make a difference when it's about how you're broadly positioned in the market or when someone is positioned in front of your menu?

05/12/2009

Probably none. If everyone agrees, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.

Experience shows that one way you can tell if a design and innovation effort is working is that it's comfortably uncomfortable. The team should be exploring the edges and pushing towards the new.

If it isn't new, you aren't learning.If it isn't new, it probably isn't a meaningfully differentiated
offering.If it isn't new, you aren't going to get the attention of a
new user.Since new offerings and new users are how you grow, then you're probably not growing.

When you're at the edges, people are bound to disagree on the right path forward. If everyone on your innovation or design team agrees, you probably
aren't pushing hard enough. That's a tough reality and one of the hidden facets of what is usually a
team sport.

So, what can you do to help inform your decision? Here are some options.

Observe and interpret what the ultimate user wants: Design research is meant, in part, to uncover explicit and implicit functional, emotional and reflective needs of a user. Getting out into the field to really look deeply and listen faithfully makes the difference.

Test, validate and repeat: Most large scale organizations know this well. Unfortunately, the thing about traditional validation and the use of benchmarks is that they are actually a form of consensus (albeit with folks or a standard that isn't even in the room).

Design for "yourself": There's a school of thought that says you can and should design for yourself. Steve Portigal has an article (the first in a series I believe) in Interactions magazine that discusses this point of view. I think this usually doesn't work for most large-scale companies (with notable exceptions of course) because most of their people are not the user.

Show the user: Build a prototype
and show it to someone. Anyone. Projective methods, a type of design
research, puts a question in front of someone to let them react. Let
your users' reactions influence you (not necessarily guide you), refine
what you're making and helping to craft how you'll tell the story of what you're making.

Build it, see what sticks and learn from it: The less the experiment costs, the better. Build a discovery-driven plan and you'll know what to learn.

You put those two ideas together and you can see why how you make your team and teammates feel is paramount. That's been something I've been learning, albeit messily, over the last decade of project work and four years of business design. I imagine I'll be learning it for as long as I do this work.

If you want to understand this better than I could ever convey, check out chapter sixteen ("The Power of Paradox") of Orbiting the Giant Hairball.

If you want to scan a range of emotions (many of which you should avoid creating), check out the image to the right (via Kevin Kelly's Blog) from Scott McCloud's awesome book Making Comics.

05/09/2009

I heard an amazing story several weeks ago from the person that leads innovation at a very large US company. Without giving too much away, I wanted to share it.

A leader had a hunch that there was the opportunity for a low-cost, time-saving consumer product. The trick was that there was nothing else like it. To get it right would mean the team would need to develop new technology, craft a new brand and enable a whole new consumer experience. Simply put, it was going to be hard if not impossible.

The leader told their team: "You've got sevenchances. Don't come back to me until you've succeeded or you've tried and failed seven times."

The team got it right on the fifth try.

The story starts in the late 1960s. The product was launched in 1970, creating a whole new category in the process. It is still sold, quite successfully, to this day.

That's amazing innovation leadership.

If you gave somebody seven chances, how many do you think it would take for them to get it right?

05/04/2009

Colin responded. (That's a nice pen!) I'm excited to ask the next question and I think it'll have something to do with pricing and positioning during this, The Big Reset.

Despite all that's been written, I think there's probably a lot of room out there to help clarify how to develop an organization that learns and launches and asks questions and connects with users in the right way. I think that's what I'm playing with on this blog a bit.

05/03/2009

I was on the phone with my good friend and fishing mentor Dave several months ago. My commute is a walking one, so I use the opportunity to call friends. (Commuting on foot in Manhattan is just as hard as in a car on the Beltway sometimes, so I should probably get a hands-free unit.)

We were trying to name the current time in which we find ourselves designing and doing business. We settled on the "Big Reset." I think that's true for companies, but also for consumers and people.

That idea proved, once again, that nothing's new in this world. But, that's what I'm going to use for right now.

Following up on my post about Trust and Competition. Here's a related post by Peter Bregman at the Harvard Business site. Here's the line that drew me in:

Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth. Trust is the new competitive advantage.

It's getting ruthless out there (consolidation, creative destruction). It's simultaneously thrilling and scary to see some of these big, cyclical business concepts playing out. It reminds me to remind myself that things repeat, especially history and especially when you let them.

So is this "small is the new big, be trustworthy" idea a new idea?

Who cares. It's a good idea.

Editor's note: We're friends with the editorial team over at Harvard Business online. They've been working amazingly hard to design for their users and evolve their offering. They keep delivering interesting stuff to my inbox, sometimes on a daily basis. It's been fun for me to personally benefit from their hard work. Lately, they've stood out amongst the many, many sources I rely on for inspiration.